Edinburgh ethicist Isabel Dalhousie’s 13th outing offers her an uncomfortable new role and another that’s already uncomfortably familiar.
Impressed by Isabel’s decisive reaction to the semipublic shaming of an asset-stripping capitalist, retired physician Iain Melrose approaches her with an unusual request. He doesn’t know her, he acknowledges, but they have mutual friends, and he’d appreciate it if she’d agree to serve as executor of his estate. It’s a big ask, because Melrose has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and he’s particularly concerned that a substantial plot of open land he owns outside Argyll be preserved by whichever of his cousins inherits it: Jack the artist, Sarah the builder, or John the accountant. Shortly after reluctantly accepting this commission, Isabel realizes that the unfortunate history she has with Jack’s wife, Hilary, who served with Isabel as a juror in a lawsuit, complicates her task in unwelcome ways. Closer to home, she must deal with her niece Cat’s plans to marry the unsuitably leonine Leo, apply to the trust that supports both her and Isabel for the funding to buy a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, and sell the delicatessen that offers Eddie, her fragile assistant, his only serious hope of employment. “Where were the boundaries of your moral responsibility for others?” Isabel wonders, and wonders, and wonders some more.
The elegant resolution of both problems makes this the ethicist's best in more than a decade.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4894-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Patterson and Ellis put their characters through hell in this hard-edged second installment of their Black Book series after The Black Book (2017).
A young girl is one of four people gunned down in a “very, very bad” K-Town drive-by shooting in Chicago. Police are under intense political pressure to solve it, so Detective Billy Harney is assigned to the Special Operations Section to put the brakes on the gang violence on the West Side. His new partner is Detective Carla Griffin, whom colleagues describe as “sober as an undertaker” and “as fun as a case of hemorrhoids.” And she looks like the last thing he needs, a pill popper. (But is she?) Department muckety-mucks want Harney to fail, and Griffin is supposed to spy on him. The poor guy already has a hell of a backstory: His daughter died and his wife committed suicide (or did she?) four years earlier, he’s been shot in the head, charged with murder (and exonerated), and helped put his own father in prison. (Nothing like a tormented hero!) Now the deaths still haunt him while he and Griffin begin to suspect they’re not looking at a simple turf war starring the Imperial Gangster Nation. Meanwhile, the captain in Internal Affairs is deep in the pocket of some bad guys who run an international human trafficking ring, and he loathes Harney. The protagonist is lucky to have Patti, his sister and fellow detective, as his one reliable friend who lets him know he’s being set up. The authors do masterful work creating flawed characters to root for or against, and they certainly pile up the troubles for Billy Harney. Abundant nasty twists will hold readers’ rapt attention in this dark, violent, and fast-moving thriller.
Top-drawer crime fiction. The authors are tough on the hero, but the hero is tough.Pub Date: March 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-49940-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In December 1926, mystery writer Agatha Christie really did disappear for 11 days. Was it a hoax? Or did her husband resort to foul play?
When Agatha meets Archie on a dance floor in 1912, the obscure yet handsome pilot quickly sweeps her off her feet with his daring. Archie seems smitten with her. Defying her family’s expectations, Agatha consents to marry Archie rather than her intended, the reliable yet boring Reggie Lucy. Although the war keeps them apart, straining their early marriage, Agatha finds meaningful work as a nurse and dispensary assistant, jobs that teach her a lot about poisons, knowledge that helps shape her early short stories and novels. While Agatha’s career flourishes after the war, Archie suffers setback after setback. Determined to keep her man happy, Agatha finds herself cooking elaborate meals, squelching her natural affections for their daughter (after all, Archie must always feel like the most important person in her life), and downplaying her own troubles, including her grief over her mother's death. Nonetheless, Archie grows increasingly morose. In fact, he is away from home the day Agatha disappears. By the time Detective Chief Constable Kenward arrives, Agatha has already been missing for a day. After discovering—and burning—a mysterious letter from Agatha, Archie is less than eager to help the police. His reluctance and arrogance work against him, and soon the police, the newspapers, the Christies’ staff, and even his daughter’s classmates suspect him of harming his wife. Benedict concocts a worthy mystery of her own, as chapters alternate between Archie’s negotiation of the investigation and Agatha’s recounting of their relationship. She keeps the reader guessing: Which narrator is reliable? Who is the real villain?
A compelling portrait of a marriage gone desperately sour.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Categories: HISTORICAL FICTION | LITERARY FICTION | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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